Friday, January 20th, 2006 ... 3:00 p.m. - 6:00 p.m. ... KZSU, 90.1 FM

Format:
ARTIST -- "TRACK TITLE" -- ALBUM TITLE (LABEL, YEAR)

* The Vandermark 5 -- "Burn Nostalgia" -- The Color of Memory (Atavistic, 2005)

Excellent 2-CD set from saxophonist Ken Vandermark's centerpiece project. The CD reflects his musical directions: Some nods to '50s cool jazz, some bright, accessible pieces in the early "free jazz" kind of mode, and some deep-digging experimental tracks. Cool stuff.

The band has another release out -- a TWELVE-CD box set documenting a two-week stay at a club in Poland. Sounds very intriguing (but understandably expensive.)

* Baptiste Trotignon and David El-Malek -- "Nir-hein" -- V/A: French Jazz Essentials (Bureau Export de la Musique Francaise, 2005)

A straight-jazz piece from this compilation of modern French artists. This one's got a fast, breezy sound, kind of mellow.

Another track from the set of jazzy Pavement covers. This one's fun. They start with a bluesy New Orleans upbeat sound. Halfway through they shift into this NOLA stomp mode with lots of musical goofing around. Great stuff with James Carter (sax) throwing in all kinds of tricks.

From Ware's quartet with Matthew Shipp (piano), William Parker (bass), and Whit Dickey (drums). Fast and scrabbly, like you'd expect, with a killer high-voltage piano solo out of Shipp.

Bheki Mseleku -- "C-Ton (Planet Earth)" -- Timelessness (Verve, 1994)

Yet again, a nice discovery while digging through the KZSU library. Mseleku is a self-taught multi-instrumentalist and quite a good one; Verve brought in guests like Joe Henderson, Elvin Jones, and Pharoah Snaders to help him out on various tracks. This particular one features some agile flute, nicely textured. Great straight jazz; now I'm going to have to surf around and see if Mseleku is still out there making music.

* Agusti Fernandez and Mats Gustafsson -- "Critical Mass 3" -- Critical Mass (Psi, 2005)

* Garage a Trois -- "Etienne" -- Outre Mer [soundtrack] (Telarc, 2005)

* Wayne Peet Quartet -- "Five Swirls" [excerpt] -- Wayne Peet Quartet (pfMentum, 2005)

I classified this as "jazz" for the station, but it's really psych-guitar jamming that gets into untethered noisy improv in spaces. No wonder -- Nels Cline is on here, as is G.E. Stinson, a lesser-known but equally out-there guitarist. Peet plays organ, lending a surfy psych sound to the whole thing. This particular track starts out with a choppy, almost funky sound fronted by noisy guitars; I played that segment but left out the longer, buzzy, spacey segment that makes up most of the track. Cheap, I know; I'll play the whole thing another week.

Mostly mellow straight album from trumpeter Pelt. This track really stands out, though -- 11 minutes backed by a cool bass riff, led by swirly electronics coloring the flugelhorn solo. Electric piano as well, for those inescapable '70s-Miles comparisons. Things get less adventurous elsewhere on the CD, but it's all good stuff.

Agile drums in an almost African beat -- very different for a group that's centered on Japanese taiko drumming. This whole CD is like that -- lots of unexpected elements. Very cool.

Another spin for this hour-long track (technically untitled, I guess). Picked a middle excerpt that starts soft, with the only few minutes of Campbell's flute playing. It shifts suddenly with a breakneck drum solo from Hooker that dives into sparks-flying trumpet from Campbell and pedal-effects violin from Hwang, sounding a lot like a jamming guitarist.

A slower one this time, from this really nice local CD. Lots of free-jazz ideas and Klezmer scales on the disk in general.

Eliane Radigue -- "Kyema, Intermediate States" [excerpt] -- Kyema, Intermediate States (Xi, 1991)
Eliane Radigue -- "Koume" -- Trilogie de la Mort (Xi, 1998)

Long, subtle electronics drones from a pioneer of the art form. Played these to note Radigue's first acoustic composition, "Naldjorlak," a 65-minute piece for solo cello. Charles Curtis will be performing it tomorrow night at Mills College in Oakland.

Charles Curtis -- [track "A," featuring cello, and track "C," sine-wave drones, played simultaneously -- excerpt] -- Ultra White Violet Light/Sleep (Squealer, 2000)

Speak of the devil. This is a 2-CD set, two tracks on each CD. The four tracks combine to form one piece, and the idea is that YOU decide which tracks to play, creating your own sound sculpture. Fun idea, although I think this is the first time I actually tried it on-air.

A variety of experiments with guitar, piano, electronics, and percussion. This particular track is a short, catchy one, with a beat (!) driven by guitar. "Reminiscent of Rod Poole's just-intonation playing," according to new KZSU DJ Ben W.

A nice grumbly excerpt, starting low-key and blossoming into fierce sax/piano playing. Then it quiets down for a calmer phase -- and did so just in time for the KZSU Concert Calendar, which I was due to read over the air at 5:30. Kismet.

Cool spacey-rock band that includes KZSU's own Baud of Euphony. They're playing Sunday night, Jan. 22, at The Make-Out Room in San Francisco -- a show that will include a composition the band did for the late Derek Bailey.

A Bailey guitar solo that gets unusually melodic and rhythmic in some of the early parts. Well, relatively so, anyway.

* Gregg August -- "Melody in Black and Grey" -- Late August (Iacuessa, 2005)

Contemporary big-band stuff ... except the band is only eight or nine people, so I don't think you can officially call it a big band. Some nice composing and tight energy, with a Latin lilt to many of the pieces. And the requisite big loud horns, of course. Nice.

* = Item in KZSU rotation
! = Pop anomaly
? = Item not in KZSU library

-- Go back to Memory Select playlists.
-- Bay Area free/improv music calendar: http://www.bayimproviser.com.